Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
'Cold Creek' manages to scare up a few thrills
Sharon Stone in 'Cold Creek Manor'
Touchstone
Stars: Sharon Stone, Dennis Quaid.
Director: Mike Figgis.
MPAA rating: R for violence, langauge and some sexuality.
Cooper and Leah Tilson (Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone) are New Yorkers desperate to move their family away to a more bucolic -- and safer -- lifestyle in the sticks. They buy a sprawling, dilapidated mansion in upstate New York after the owner -- the recently released-from-prison Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff) -- falls behind in his mortgage payments.
The Tilson family, including children Kristen and Jesse (Kristen Stewart and Ryan Wilson), barely get settled in before Dale shows up and decides to reclaim his family home.
Director Mike Figgis ("Leaving Las Vegas") gives lots of visual hints. Lingering shots on objects such as a huge stained glass window and a lovely pony tell us these things will become important later on. There are a few occasions where he manages to surprise, but just one where he horrifyingly delights.
The thing that makes this film much more interesting than your general run-of-the-mill, crazy-guy-menaces-hero stories is that the family as a whole acts as the hero, no one character saves the day. The young actors who portray the children contribute to the efforts, and they seem like real kids you'd meet in your neighborhood: petulant, smart, sensitive and difficult -- sometimes all at once. They're not wiser than their years nor are they cute little appendages of their parents. They're real characters.
Stone and Quaid carry off their roles convincingly, too, as does Juliette Lewis as Ruby, Dale's girlfriend. Lewis plays pretty much the same character she has in movie after movie: The trashy, low-rent, off-kilter vixen who somehow manages to exude a disconcerting charisma. But you know she does it well.
Dorff sheds his clean-cut good looks to act the scruffy, redneck Dale and embeds slivers of charm into his unsettling -- although predictable -- performance.
In the end, Figgis tells us a tale that might not be exactly what we'd expected, but fails to surprise us, nonetheless.
